The World's Billionaires

#232 Paul Desmarais

03.10.10, 06:00 PM EST

Bought his father's one-route Ontario bus company for a dollar in 1951; eventually built it into Power Corp., a $32 billion (sales) financial services and communications giant; stock regained 25% of its value over the past year.

Bought his father's one-route Ontario bus company for a dollar in 1951; eventually built it into Power Corp., a $32 billion (sales) financial services and communications giant; stock regained 25% of its value over the past year. Company owns Montreal daily, La Presse, as well as 6 other newspapers in Quebec and Ontario. It also controls Power Financial, which includes life insurer Great-West Lifeco and Investors Group, the largest mutual fund company in Canada. Desmarais' sons, Paul Junior, and Andre, share the chairmanship of Power Corp. Desmarais Sr. collects Canadian art and hunts birds at his private estate in Quebec. Family is friends with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.